Cosmopolitan
by vashsunglasses
Summary: Drabblish. Being the only scientist in the family, Donatello finds it easy to hide certain facts that are best kept secret. Genderfic.
1. Cosmopolitan, Don

**Title:** Cosmopolitan

**Author:** vashsunglasses

**Rating:** T

**Fandom:** TMNT

**Disclaimer:** TMNT belongs to Mirage.

**Summary:** One Shot. Drabblish. Being the only scientist in the family, Donatello finds it easy to hide certain facts that are best kept secret. Genderfic.

* * *

"_Hey guys!" Michelangelo cried out gleefully, running through the lair with a magazine in his fist and dodging a furious Donatello, "Look what I caught Donny reading!"_

"_Oh, lemme see!" Raph exclaimed, grabbing the magazine and then snickering when he saw the cover, "Cosmo! Don-san, you read Cosmo? What, are you gay?"_

_Donatello snatched the magazine away from his grinning brothers, "No I am not gay! It's research!"_

_Leonardo walked out of the dojo with Splinter, "What kind of research?" Leo asked curiously._

_

* * *

  
_

Donatello had always been the smallest of the turtles. Slight differences in physique that lead Raph to rib him about being effeminate, and lead to constant defeats in sparing matches.

He'd been only eight when a book on turtle anatomy found its way into the lair. The best way to contrast and compare anatomy with Red Eared Sliders was to look within himself, as it were, and he found nothing that matched the male physiology of either turtle or human. So he chalked it up to the mutation and left it at that.

Then came adolescence and his brothers began acting out in inexplicable ways. Changing in ways that both bewildered and frightened him because he didn't feel those same changes within himself. But he had always been smaller, so he chalked it up to a slower development and left it at that.

Then came his teens and he stumbled upon one of his brothers doing something in private that threw every assumption he had right out the window. And after blushing and apologizing and running to his lab to hide he considered what he had seen, and checked himself once again, and hoped that he had missed something. But no, at least one of his brothers had the male physiology of a turtle, and Donatello did not.

The idea horrified him. What if he was deformed? A eunuch? He had to test the others, to see if he was the only one. So under the guise of science (and with much grousing from his brothers and much blushing from himself) he examined them all, and came to the heart rending conclusion that they were all anatomically intact. Only he was different.

He couldn't let anyone know, so he made an effort to be as masculine as possible. Or at least he tried to, until his brothers laughed at him and asked him why he was acting funny. So he went with the effeminate professor excuse, and they seemed to buy it.

Then came the insomnia, and the stifling heat that made him want to crawl out of his own shell, and the claustrophobia that brought the sewer walls closing in. He needed to get out. Need to breathe the fresh air. Needed to settle his stomach that felt so bloated and cramped and tight behind his plastron.

So in the deep of the night he crept from the lair, searching, searching, for something he knew not. Only that there was somewhere he needed to be. Somewhere where his stomach would stop hurting and the muzzy heat would finally clear from his head. And when a breeze came down the dark tunnel he followed it to the ocean.

And in a sheltered alcove she laid her unfertilized eggs and buried them beneath the sand.

Everything she knew was wrong! He was wrong! He was a she! He made it only halfway back home to the lair before she threw up the contents of his stomach. And then she laughed with a choking sob at his earlier worries about being a eunuch. Apparently her well traveled and learned Master couldn't tell the difference between male and female turtles. In that moment, he wanted to die. In the next moment, she pondered the thought of perpetuating the species and vomited again. It was soon after that his brothers found her and dragged him home, where she was ill for several days with headaches as her entire brain recategorized itself. One thing she knew above all else, she couldn't tell anybody, not yet, not until she understood it fully.

* * *

"_I'll tell you when I'm finished," Donatello said, giving her brothers an inscrutable glance. "Once I've got it all figured out you guys will be the first to know."_

"_Yeah, whatever dude," Michelangelo replied, bored already._

"_You're so gay!" Raph cackled cheerfully._

"_I am not gay Raph, and if I were you I'd remember who it is who gives the vaccinations around here!" Donatello said with a smirk, entering her lab, "Flu season is coming, and I'm the only one standing between you and a month of coughing."_

"_Leave him alone guys," Leo said sternly, "Donny will tell us when he's ready. He's the most dependable guy I know."_

_Donatello flinched._


	2. Revelations Part 1

**Title:** Cosmopolitan: Revelations (Multi-Part Sequel!)

**Author:** vashsunglasses

**Rating:** T

**Fandom:** TMNT

**Disclaimer:** TMNT belongs to Mirage.

**Summary:** One Shot. Drabblish. Being the only scientist in the family, Donatello finds it easy to hide certain facts that are best kept secret. Genderfic.

**Note:** It went from Donny in the original story to Donnie in this one, because "ie" is a feminine ending and I can see a female Donatello mentally editing it in her mind. I'm just writing to reflect that.

* * *

_**Revelations**_

_**Part 1**_

* * *

Master Splinter was visiting Japan for the next month, and April and Casey were out of town, leaving Michelangelo and Donatello alone with two very angry and very loud brothers who couldn't seem to stop fighting. The two youngest turtles had taken shelter in Donnie's room.

"Do you think they will stop to eat or sleep?" Michelangelo asked, "Or do you think they will just keep arguing and arguing and arguing until they fall over dead?"

"I'm female." Donnie watched in horror as Mike's jaw dropped. She hadn't meant to say that, it had just come out. Lips moving on their own. She'd always thought that sort of thing only happened in fiction.

Mikey sputtered helplessly for a moment, blinking rapidly and running his hands over Don's old bedspread in a nervous fashion. "Um, what?"

Donnie's hands slapped over her mouth. "Oh god!" she blurted through her fingers. "Oh god! Oh shit! Forget I said anything!" She spun around in her computer chair and tried to look busy, grabbing the first thing she found which happened to be a broken toaster.

Michelangelo stared at the knot of Donatello's bandanna, trying to puzzle together the strange situation he had suddenly found himself in. _Twilight Zone much? _"Say, Don?"

…No answer.

Mikey squinched his eyebrow ridges up in his best determined face, even though the turtle across the room was still looking in the other direction pretending to ignore him. "Is this a transgender thing, like on those talk shows?"

Donatello dropped the toaster and it bounced across the workbench and onto the floor, scattering vital innards as it went. "What?! No!" she screeched, then checked her volume fearing that the warring brothers outside had heard her, but their muffled argument continued unabated.

"Ok… What about transvestite, like, cross dressing?"

She snickered as she crawled under the table, picking up parts as she went, "I don't wear clothing Mikey, so how could I be a cross dresser?" She jerked her head up and bumped it on the underside of the table as she heard her brother's next inhalation and knew what was coming. "No! …owwie… I'm not gay! …damn that hurt…"

Michelangelo's breath left him in a rush and he frowned, "I'm confused," he said, mentally wincing at the loud crack the Genius' head had made against the table.

Donnie crawled out from under the table, setting the parts in a pile on the floor next to her, she rubbed the top of her head gingerly. _I'm just going to have to come out and say it._ She looked her brother in the eye as she spoke, "It seems that male and female mutant turtles look exactly the same on the outside, and that the differences only become apparent after puberty starts." She looked away in embarrassment. It still galled her that it had taken her so long to figure it out, "I always assumed that I was male like the rest of you, but recent events have made it pretty clear that I'm actually… well… female." She looked over at her brother and scowled when she saw the neutral expression on his face. "You don't believe me do you," she sighed.

Mikey blushed, "Well actually. I was kinda thinking that it makes sense, you know?"

Donnie leaned forward, "Makes sense? What do you mean?" she began to panic, "Was it really that obvious? Did you already know? Does everyone suspect me?" She rose up to her knees and leaned right into his face as if to search his bright blue eyes for the answers herself.

Michelangelo threw back his head and laughed.

Donatello snapped and tackled him, pinning him to her bed and shaking his shoulders to stop his laughter. His head bobbled around like a doll but he wouldn't stop. She growled in frustration, and dropped his head to bounce lightly off the bed. "Stop laughing you dufus and answer me!" she hissed, but that just made him laugh harder.

* * *

_**To Be Continued**_


	3. Revelations Part 2

**Title:** Cosmopolitan: Revelations

**Author:** vashsunglasses

**Rating:** T

**Fandom:** TMNT

**Disclaimer:** TMNT belongs to Mirage.

**Summary:** One Shot. Drabblish. Being the only scientist in the family, Donatello finds it easy to hide certain facts that are best kept secret. Genderfic.

**Author's Note: ** Oh man... I know that I have had horrible writer's block and all, but this is just ridiculous. I am so sorry for leaving you all hanging. Please don't kill me. You probably want to reread this fic from the beginning after all this time, just FYI...

* * *

_**Revelations**_

_**Part 2**_

* * *

Michelangelo rubbed his plastron with his hand. He hadn't laughed that hard in months and his insides hurt. He glanced over at his pouting brother, _'Sister...?'_ and had to swallow down the snickers that rose from the depths at the way Donatello seemed to radiate depression from every pore. _'Melodrama much, Don?'_ he thought to himself with an interior smirk. It wasn't like anyone was going to hate him, er... her for something like this. Kind of embarrassing, yeah, but not the end of the world. He decided to throw his poor benighted sibling a bone, "Can a person know something without actually knowing it? I mean, like, I didn't know about this girl thing and all, but when you told me I was totally, like, ah ha! You know?"

Donnie's head poked up from where she had buried it in her knees, "You mean you knew it subconsciously?"

Mikey sat up, "Uh yeah, duh."

"Oh..." Donnie replied, relieved. One of the thoughts that had flown through her head previously was that maybe she gave off some kind of pheromones that her brother could pick up. Which led to horrible thoughts that made her wish she had read less fanfiction. There was no way in hell that she would ever... that they could... just... YUCK. She shuddered in disgust and pushed the thoughts as far away as possible.

Mikey didn't know what Don was thinking about to make her grimace like that, but it amused him to know that his older sibling's overactive imagination would never change. '_At least I'm not the only one in this family with weird stuff in my head...'_ He leaned back on the bed, "So, how big a secret is this? Are we talking decoder rings or what?"

Donnie scowled, "Mikey, this is serious!"

"What, like everyone's gunna stop loving you if they find out?" _'piffle'_

Donatello could almost feel Michelangelo's eyes rolling in their sockets. "It's not like that..." she said softly, "It's just that a person's gender colors the way you see them. I mean, nobody thinks twice about male mutant turtles walking around naked, but what about female mutant turtles?" The image of herself wearing several layers of formal kimono flickered behind her eyelids.

Michelangelo's face scrunched up incredulously, "But dude, you've always walked around in your birthday suit. It's not like there's anything showing. You know..." he waved his hands around in what was supposed to be a suggestive manner but it looked more like a pigeon having a seizure. "Anyway, I've known you are a girl for a whole ten minutes already and I'm not all scandalized at your graphic nudity or whatever."

"Yeah, but Mikey," Donnie said, "You... you're not like other people."

Mikey flung his arms over his head, "I'm going to pretend that was a compliment," he said airily.

"It was a compliment, doofus." Don smacked her brother's arm and stood up, pacing to the end of the room and then returning. She opened her mouth to speak and then- "Hey wait!" she exclaimed, tilting her head towards the door, "they've stopped arguing."

"Sweet!" Mikey cheered, jumping off the bed and running towards the door, "Now I can finish my movie!"

"Wait!" Donnie screeched, diving into her brother's path and hissing as she stepped on a loose screw, "Promise me you won't say anything!" she moaned as she picked up her tender foot and saw a small drop of blood on the underside.

"I promise, I promise! Sheesh don't injure yourself." He reached out to steady her as she poked at her wounded foot. "It'll be just fine, don't worry! And even if it isn't, just send them to me and I'll knock some sense into them." His smile was bright but something undefinable flickered in his eyes as he said it.

_'So even he's not sure how they'll react, not really.'_

"So, can I go watch my movie now or are we going to have to amputate your foot?" he asked with a smirk.

"Get out of here."

"But Donnie, what if you get gangrene? How will you even tell the difference?"

"Out!"


	4. Revelations Part 3

**Title:** Cosmopolitan: Revelations

**Author:** vashsunglasses

**Rating:** T

**Fandom:** TMNT

**Disclaimer:** TMNT belongs to Mirage.

**Summary:** One Shot. Drabblish. Being the only scientist in the family, Donatello finds it easy to hide certain facts that are best kept secret. Genderfic.

* * *

_**Revelations**_

_**Part 3**_

* * *

Contrary to popular belief, and he knew what the popular belief was because he had done a survey, Michelangelo had many layers. On the surface layer, the physical layer, he was sitting on the couch watching a movie and stuffing popcorn into his mouth. If you had asked his brothers, they would have laughed and said that the surface layer was all there was, but they knew better.

On a slightly lower layer lay his most basic thoughts. This included gems like: 'Wow she's hot', 'Yes! Massive explosion!' and 'I wonder if you can get fat from eating too much popcorn...'. This was the layer that most of those polled had claimed as the inner most layer. The "true" Michelangelo, if you will. Michelangelo found this at turns funny and irritating, though his irritation was mostly limited to a lower level.

And it was on that lower level, that only a select few even suspected the existence of, that Michelangelo was plotting ways to contain the family meltdown he knew would occur when Donnie's news hit the fan.

Oh he knew it wouldn't be as epic as the whole Leo disappearing for years fiasco. He doubted there would be any duels between brothers. And he didn't agree with Donnie that everyone would treat her differently once they knew. Sure there would be some awkwardness at the beginning, but that would blow over. The thing that worried Michelangelo was the loss of confidence. If they could get something like this so fundamentally wrong, what else had they messed up on? What else had they overlooked?

The movie ended and Michelangelo stuffed the remaining popcorn into his mouth all at once. He heard a sound of disgust from behind his head.

"Could you be any more disgusting, Michelangelo?" Leo hissed.

"I don't know," Michelangelo grinned, tilting his head back to look at his older brother upside down, "Can I? Let's find out!"

He watched his as his older brother's face crumpled like old newspaper at the thought. It wasn't enough to amuse him on that deep down level, but he allowed a bit of surface interest to flicker across his own face in reply. Riling his brothers had gotten too easy. It was almost ridiculous how easily he had riled Don up earlier. Ok, yeah, there was the whole gender awkwardness helping the situation... but still. Maybe it was a sign.

"...you're not even paying attention to me, are you Mikey?" Leo's voice belatedly trailed into Michelangelo's consciousness.

"No, not really," he replied with a straight face, sitting back upright and getting up from the couch. "I'm going out for a while, don't wait up."

* * *

There were times when the eldest turtle looked into the youngest turtle's eyes and realized that he had absolutely no idea what when on behind them. It was so rare as to be a mirage, but an insidious voice whispered that maybe Michelangelo was a better ninja than all of them. Perhaps invisibility could exist within the mind itself. Could one become invisible by being as loud and obnoxious as possible? Leo jumped when Raphael walked up behind him and slapped him on the shoulder. "Damn it, Raph!" he yelled, twisting to face him.

"Some ninja," Raph rolled his eyes, "Now don't you start up too."

Leo could feel his eye ridges scrunching together, talk about inscrutable brothers! Though if Raphael had secrets he would eat his swords. Raphael wore his heart on his shell. Always had. "Start with what?"

"Don't tell me ya haven't noticed, Fearless. Donatello's been in a funk for months and now Mikey seems to have caught it, whatever the hell 'it' is." Raphael brushed past the eldest brother and walked into the kitchen area, opening the ancient fridge and grabbing a beer. "Michelangelo thinks he's so good at hiding things, ha!" He opened the can with a brisk crack and tilted his head back to chug down a few solid gulps.

Leo answered mildly in reply, crossing his arms, "It's not my place to pry."

Raphael stopped drinking abruptly, spilling a few drops down his chin as he turned to glare at his older brother, "...you know something, don't you?"

A shrug, "It's not my place to tell either."

"Not your place?!" Raph growled.

Smirk. "Exactly."

Raphael slammed the can down on the counter and stalked up to Leonardo, placing himself shell to shell with him and staring him down from his two inch advantage. The air grew thick with tension and neither moved, then-

"Ha! Liar. I don't believe you," Raph said derisively, turning away and walking toward the exit of the lair.

"Suit yourself, Raph."

"Yeah, whatever," Raphael muttered under his breath, putting on his trench coat and hat, "I'm going out, be back whenever fuck I feel like it," he called out as he walked through the door. He slammed it behind him and heard Leo's faint reply as he walked away."

"When you find Michelangelo, tell him that he forgot his coat."


	5. Cosmopolitan, Leo

**Title:** Cosmopolitan

**Author:** vashsunglasses

**Rating:** T

**Fandom:** TMNT

**Disclaimer:** TMNT belongs to Mirage.

**Summary:** One Shot. Drabblish. Being the only scientist in the family, Donatello finds it easy to hide certain facts that are best kept secret. Genderfic.

* * *

"_Leave him alone guys," Leo said sternly, "Donnie will tell us when he's ready. He's the most dependable guy I know."_

_Donatello flinched._

* * *

He shouldn't have said it. He knew he shouldn't have said it. When he saw Donatello flinch away from his words a pit of regret grew in his stomach. But it was tinged with spite, which only made him feel worse.

He shouldn't have said that.

He should have been the supportive big brother.

He should have said something when he saw that something was wrong.

He should have spoken out instead of hiding in the shadows as his brother fell apart before his eyes.

He should... he shouldn't have had to clean up after his _sister's_ mess.

Donatello goes on and on about genetic secrecy and hiding all biological traces and then he- _she_ lays a bunch of- of _mutant turtle_ eggs and leaves them where anyone could find them?

It was only as he watched his bro-sis-_whatever_ throw up the entire contents of h-her stomach that he called the rest of his family and told them where to find them. Donnie hadn't suspected a thing.

And when he went back a few days later to check on the site, of course the eggs had been exposed to the elements again by wind and rain.

Open to the view of anyone passing by.

So he did what he'd had to do. He'd crushed them one by one under his heel, biting back bile at the slick slimy feel of them under his foot as he pushed down, at the tiny explosions of slick wetness as each one gave way. He didn't look down and he didn't allow himself to think about them too hard.

Out of sight, out of mind.

And hopefully, out of their enemies minds. Permanently.

If Bishop found out about this-

The thought almost made him add his own vomit to Donatello's.

No one has to know, he repeated silently in his head.

After all, was his duty as leader to protect the family, even from themselves.

* * *

_"Don't read that garbage," Leo said flatly, taking the magazine away and throwing it in the trash._

_"But Leo," Donnie cried out, "I was reading that!"_

_"Trust me," Leo replied sternly, "I'm doing you a favor. That trash will rot your mind." And inside his mind he thought, 'Threat to exposure, neutralized."_


End file.
